during that period by scientific invention, and its practical application to the useful arts, as manifested in greater convenience of the domestic economies, in more rapid and easier locomotion, in earlier diffusion of information by means of newspaper and telegraph, and by closer intercourse between communities and nations, the life of every individual within reach of civilization has been quickened and altered. New necessities have been created, as the new ministrations for the service of the human race have gradually been unfolded. It became obvious that new methods should be provided to afford the ready knowledge sufficient to comprehend the history, politics, commerce, manufactures, resources, geography and climatic peculiarities, not only of our own country, but also of other countries, more or less remote. It must be admitted that this form of current knowledge would be, to a great extent, superficial; but enough of it was needed to understand the details of the newspaper, the daily companion of almost every artisan, as well as every merchant or professional man in this country, and fast becoming the same general necessity in Europe. These ends and aims the free library was the first public provision to meet.

The establishment of these libraries in England and in the United States at once brought to light the avidity with which all classes were prepared to take advantage of the privileges now first fully placed within their reach. Every collection of books for this purpose, being presumably made upon the basis, so far as could be known beforehand, of furnishing to each community the works most needed by it in the various departments of learning and letters, soon gave evidence of suitable appreciation, and, at the same time, through the statistics of its use, indicated the intellectual and moral cravings of its visitors. That those desires were not, on the average, of a more elevated character, at first produced some disappointment in the friends of education, but when it was remembered that people would only read the books which they wished to read, and not those expressly provided, as it were, without their consent, for their intellectual advancement, the disappointment gave way to the reasonable expectation that, in forming a taste for books, the average understanding would raise itself, step by step, from the perusal of innocuous works of fiction, or from inconsequential and sporadic reading, to a better and higher and more useful class of literary productions. Experience has shown that this expectation has proved measurably correct. Though, throughout this country and in England, three-fourths of the whole amount of average circulation is made up of fiction and juveniles, it is yet found that the demand for better books is steadily and regularly making progress.

In this view, one can understand the objections that have been made to the system of popular libraries. In the "London Quarterly Review," a scholar of the day thus utters his complaint: "The object of a library is not so much to make books or readers of books, as to make students.

Never is any real benefit produced by reading for mere amusement. The tempting facilities offered by public libraries, like machinery in manufactures, increases production at the expense of the strength of the staple. The article is not made for wear, but for the shop-window.” In answer to this, it may be said that these objections do not meet the case, except upon a single point of view. Whether desirably or not, you cannot make, from natural and social causes, a whole community of scholars. The people must be taken as they exist. In providing the text-books for the student and scholar alone, one only continues the sort of institution with which Europe is filled everywhere, — libraries little used, stored with musty books, of no great importance when printed, and of less service in this generation; frequented only by the few people of the neighborhood whose tastes are satisfied, and whose perceptions are filled by the traditions of the past, rather than by the realities of the present. These collections entirely ignore the class of readers for whom the public libraries of this day are gathered, — people who need the books of their time, whether in science, art, or literature. Among the works thus collected, will be found, not only those required by the student and general scholar, but also those (and this is the main point) important to the largest number of people. In the use of books, though one might wish that a higher motive could always be uettbtradi than "reading for mere amusement," it may also be said, in mitigation, that one has yet to learn of any serious injury accruing from a settled taste for reading, even from the low motive ascribed as almost opprobrious. The enthusiast who cries for "one dear book," thumbed and dog'seared; cracked in the back, and broken in the corners; noted on the fly-leaf, and scrawled on the margins; sullied and scorched, torn and worn; its leaves crumbly with much overuse, and perhaps unfriendly abuse, will not, I am afraid, find this volume so readily on the shelves of the British Museum, as among the cheap and accessible stores of some local popular library. If the real cultivation, so much desired by the conservative critic, is thus obtained, it will proceed more from the attractive character of the work, than from the weight of its contents. Fortunate will the reader be when the solidity equals the fascination.

But with regard to the short-lived books of the day, which form a necessary part of every library of any extent or variety, there is always this consolatory reflection, which may be stated in the words of the learned Scaliger: "There is no book so worthless that I cannot collect something from it." Every reader may not, however, have this ability, or may not bear in mind his own power to extract the essence, such as it may be, of the weed. But, on the other hand, the most popular books are often the most commonplace, for the simple reason that people of moderate intellects are pleased to see their own thoughts, as

it were, reflected back from the pages of a book," and are thus doubly gratified by the delineations or truisms of the writer, and by the direct compliment thus conveyed to their own intelligence and culture.

But it is not of such books or for such readers that a public library should be mainly collected. The activity of temperament which marks both sexes in New England seeks expression and refreshment in the writings of the authors who appeal most strongly to their sympathies and tastes. The new books marking the movement of the time; the classics of the past associated with the progress of the human mind in all ages and countries; the favorite authors who have assisted in the formation of character, and in the development of the imagination; the hand-books of fact, the multiform shapes of fiction,- each and all of these may enter not only into the pleasures, but also into the improvement of a life, of which the larger portion is devoted to the pressing needs of subsistence, or to the daily drudgery of some engrossing occupation. One of the most important and most gratifying results yet attained from the formation of our libraries is to be seen in the fact that, year by year, it is found that the circulation extends more and more among the poorer classes, who have the fewest comforts and pleasures within their reach. Thus seed is sown which grows and bears fruit, where the sun but seldom shines and the cheering breezes of heaven most rarely blow.

In the miscellaneous collection now gathered here for the uses os your people, the City Government has laid the basis of a populart library. It is not composed of costly books of reference, of worsf, illustrated to express the highest triumphs of art, or of the rare ke ures so eagerly sought by the antiquarian or the bibliomaniac; but it comprises substantially the volumes which experience has shown to be most attractive and necessary in the other popular libraries. Within the scope of the collection will be found books for old and young, and for both sexes, for various tastes and occupations. But, in the relative importance of the selections, works for the young must occupy the first place, because, whatever their character and interest, they all are necessarily educational. By this expression, one does not mean that they are directly written for the purpose of instruction, but whatever their nature may be, as read by the young, and with the vivid attention inseparable from the spring-time of life, they enter into its future and leave their mark for good or evil upon the male or female development, which is to make the adult useful and happy in his or her day and generation. This is mainly the responsibility in the formation of a free library. It must provide books suitable to the needs of the community which it serves. It furnishes strong meat for the strong, and tender support for the feeble. What mental physician shall properly judge

how these are to be administered? Shall you or will you leave the decision to the unformed character, the wayward susceptibilities, the undefined longings, the impossible futurities, the dormant tastes, the irrepressible activity, no less than the implicit trust of the young? For their especial use is gathered here a carefully selected collection of books expressly written for them; but each book with varying aims, dependent upon the point of view of the author, and the ends which were intended to be promoted - whether of instructive narrative, exciting adventure, or sensational extravagance; or it may be that an ideal picture of work and its appropriate results in the future may be presented for the information of those who have only known the tender care of home, without one single experience of the hardships of real life. They may consist of the confused depictments of fancy, or of the moral teachings or of the religious or sectarian instruction, proper and sufficient for the selected child over whose future the book is to act either as sympathetic adviser or amusing friend. These are among the conditions of reading for the young, much advanced over the advantages offered to our parents and to our own childhood, and more than sufficient for the needs of to-day. This brings one to the practical point – the responsibility of the education of youth - the supervision and election of that which is deemed beneficial for the moral and intellectual training of each child. So far as reading is concerned, no less than in other important impulses of early life, the responsibility belongs to parents and guardians, and not to those who provide the intellectual nutriment which may strengthen and fortify one temperament while it depresses or injures another, like the simples of the physician's prescriptions, which may build up one physical system while they destroy another. To those. who are answerable for the care of youth there are few trusts more important than the oversight and direction of its reading.

These are the dangers of the young in its impetuous pursuit of the gratification of its tastes in its favorite books. Our adult growth is naturally supposed to know what it wants or needs. But there are wants which the system of supply for the branch libraries is not proposed or intended to meet. It is not within its scope to gather other than collections of popular books, —that is, books intended for general reading, and satisfactory or sufficient for the average reader. It should contain, beside, the works of reference needed by the inquirer upon some special point of interest, and the hand-books required by the mechanical trades; indeed, one may say that all is comprised in the phrase, the books useful to the largest number of people. The costly productions which constitute the permanent value of the Bates Hall Library must necessarily be excluded from the economy of the branch,

so far as public funds may provide. These works have come to the parent institution from private benefaction, from the generous gifts of Joshua Bates, Jonathan Phillips, Abbott Lawrence, John P. Bigelow, George Ticknor, Theodore Parker, the Bowditch brothers, from the Old South Church, and from numerous other helpers, whose names one would gratefully mention. If you wish to build up a library which shall not only comprise the books important to the great majority of your population, but also to the students of specialties, to writers and authors, to your clergy, your lawyers, your physicians, your architects and your engineers; if you wish to create and foster a taste for the arts; if you wish to see on the shelves of your library works of such intrinsic value that they are better suited to remain within its walls than to be loaned for home perusal, then those more scientific, costly and rare volumes must be placed there by the public spirit of your own citizens. In establishing this branch upon the same principles, and upon the same basis by which the city has erected the popular libraries in Boylston street and East Boston, it has done its whole duty; but above and beyond these suggestions, other attractions may properly be added to increase the general interest, and to draw to it classes of larger culture and more refined tastes. If a direction can be given to this institution by which it may meet the necessities of your people beyond the point which any general provision can reach, whether it shall become the handmaid of art, the promoter of science, the assistant of technical skill, or the silent instructor of abstruse knowledge, must depend, in a large degree, upon the perception of your own wants, and a sympathetic assistance of those of your own body who recognize the existence of these needs, and are prepared to help those whose hands are extended for aid. Any intellectual attraction that can be added will tend to make the institution not only a proper subject of local pride, but of continuous interest in the future. It is an object worthy of the highest ambition to form such a library as every person in the community capable of reading should willingly and eagerly seek.

It has been most cheering to the Trustees of the Public Library to witness the abundant success of its first Branch, and to perceive the lively interest awakened in the prospective formation of similar institutions in other districts of our city. That you, my friends, the inhabitants of South Boston, will find in your new magazine of instruction and entertainment a fulfilment of your expectations; that you will care for it as a sacred trust, and that you will develop it into the form most useful to yourselves both for to-day and for coming years, are points upon which no question can now be entertained. The City of Boston, and the Trustees of the Public Library, confidently, unreservedly and hopefully now commit it to your fostering care.